While they can come close, grow lights cannot duplicate natural sunlight. Greenhouse plants will photosynthesize better and grow faster and stronger with natural light. You would need a LOT of grow lights to replicate that and likely still come up short.

What are you growing in the greenhouse in winter? Does it require a specific temperature or just to prevent freezing or winter cold damage? There are ways to heat a greenhouse sufficiently in winter to keep temps above freezing without having to resort to all the time electrical heat. There are various online sources that outline numerous ways you can bump up and maintain temps with minimal expense.

Greenhouses can fit in anywhere, especially on good sized suburban and rural properties. You want to site them where they receive maximum sunlight, are convenient to any utilities and where you have easy access. For them not to stand out, they just need to be given some context with plants and hardscaping and not to have them appear as an afterthought.

Shipping containers seem even more outrageous than an ill-placed greenhouse (if it is ill-placed) and would not be something I'd consider appropriate to a garden.

Hard call which would be more expensive. Unless you run solar, you would have to run/bury power out to where the boxes will be. If they are on the ground, you will likely have to fit insulation and heating/cooling. Or maybe not heating, just cooling where you are. And ventilation too. If you bury you don't have to put as much into the heating and cooling. Still insulate the box, need ventilation added in for underground, and also dig out that big hole to bury the box. Build in entrance structure.

You could also try to address the greenhouse instead. There could be things to do to improve it's situation to help make it more cost effective to heat. Or potentially utilize other heat. Can it be moved to a better location? What are the walls currently made of/constructed? If you can double your walls to create air pockets. You might be able to use thermal mass like setting up a wall of water barrels, straw bales, or other mass on your north wall. You could also use straw bales to line the walls of the inside of it to help thermal.

Since if I recall you had a thread about wood chipping. You could use wood chips for thermal mass. If you want to do some planning and setup, you could set up a hot pile of them and use piping to bring in your composting hot air from it. Like this guy:

I'm so sorry, I typed the below up last night and forgot to click Submit! LOL

***********

What are you growing in the greenhouse in winter? Does it require a specific temperature or just to prevent freezing or winter cold damage?

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9), it's mostly plants that wouldn't survive my winter, but I don't have room for in the house: dracaena grasses, Tradescantia zebrina (formerly known as Wandering Jew), cordyline (which would survive but doesn't come back until July or August), etc. But I also have Blue Java banana trees that I'm hoping to actually get to fruit (minimum 65), and I start my hot peppers in January so that I'll have fruit by September (minimum 60).

Greenhouses can fit in anywhere, especially on good sized suburban and rural properties. You want to site them where they receive maximum sunlight, are convenient to any utilities and where you have easy access. For them not to stand out, they just need to be given some context with plants and hardscaping and not to have them appear as an afterthought.

Shipping containers seem even more outrageous than an ill-placed greenhouse (if it is ill-placed) and would not be something I'd consider appropriate to a garden.

I have 5 acres of land, with about 3/4 of an acre of it cleared and the rest is wild woods. My house is near the back Western corner, so I only have about 30' of woods to the East and North, with the rest of the woods to the West.

You can see the greenhouse here:

I already had a breaker box nearby, so I was able to run heat to it for pretty cheap. The front and Western side of the house are the only full sun areas; if I go to the back then it becomes full shade, and I don't have a lot of room before getting to the edge of my property.

If I did the storage containers then I wouldn't have those limitations. My dad passed recently and I'm supposed to get his tractor, which means that I'll have the ability to dig a hole myself and then drag the containers in and cover them up. In theory, if grow lights would be enough then I could put them in a small clearing in the woods for virtually free, and all I would need to invest is more wire from the breaker box.

What are the walls currently made of/constructed?

@beesneeds, this is the greenhouse:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0851K3SGB/

The customer service from the company has been great, but it has a few flaws that make it pretty inefficient for heat: the cover only straps down on the front and back, so wind can come under the sides and then lift the middle! I've gone out a few times and seen more than a 1' gap at the bottom :-O I've lined it with cinder blocks now to hold it down, but it's still not air tight or anything.

I think that you had mentioned some of those things before (someone did, anyway), and I've started that direction as time allows. But when I realized that I had these two shipping containers available, it hit me that I might have a better option for cheaper.

But if grow lights will still come up short, like @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) said, then it might end up being a lot of work for nothing :-/

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5, the heater I bought had a thermostat built in. I took that thermostat out and wired it to the middle of the greenhouse, so I was able to keep it at a consistent 70 degrees without running all the time.

For the next few months I'll have awkward phases of very hot days with very cold nights. That was a real issue with my previous greenhouse, just keeping it closed would get up to 110F during the day! So I would open the doors, but by 6pm it would be below 50.

I think that I can install an exhaust fan with a thermostat, but I haven't explored it too much. It's getting to be about that time, though...

i dont know how 2 shipping containers are not more ugly than a greenhouse... crikey.. properly landscaped in your landscape.. a hot house would be a prime focal point ...

I addressed this in the post that I forgot to submit yesterday, sorry if I sound like I'm repeating myself!

The way that my property is laid out, the only full sun area I can use is in the front or West of the house; either way, it's very visible. I'm also a little limited financially because of the location of an outside breaker box (and to a lesser degree, the location of a water spigot).

My plan for this year was to plant shrubs in front of it to help pretty it up while still letting it get enough sunlight. But then I realized that I have access to 2 shipping containers, so before I started spending more time and money on trying to purty-up the greenhouse (haha) I wanted to make sure it's my BEST option.

My thought with using shipping containers is that I could create a small clearing in the wild woods, then move them there. I should be inheriting my dad's tractor, so I could realistically spend the next few months digging a hole for them, then drag the containers in and bury them. My property has a heavy slope at one end, so it wouldn't be too hard to place them in such a way that I could just leave one end uncovered and have easy access.

If I did that then the only expense would be for more 240V wire and the grow lights, both of which I could push off until November so I'd have some time to buy things piecemeal. And I'd probably run a new spigot to it. I would probably build drainage in to the bottom, too. So maybe $1000 invested, depending on the grow lights.

If that cuts my winter electric bill by $200 /month, though, then I'd recoup that investment after the first year. And with it buried in the woods, it would be completely hidden and out of the way.

What size are the containers? If it isn't going to cost you to have them, might as well have them. And right handy if you got the digger.

But don't forget the cost of your ventilation system in addition to the lights. If you are growing in a closed box, you have to run climate control in that box. And I forgot before- footings. Unless you are putting that box on some rock you are going to want some footings under it. Drainage and stability for the weight of the container.

What size are the containers? If it isn't going to cost you to have them, might as well have them. And right handy if you got the digger.

My dad passed in January (COVID), and my sister and I have been trying to clear up his estate. He had two shipping containers that he used for storage (junk, mostly), so once we get them cleaned out then we'll have to figure out what to do with the containers. They're too old to have a resale value, and it won't be cheap to take them to the landfill.

If these are standard containers then they should be 8.5' high x 8' wide by 20' long. I was thinking to place them side by side and cutting a door in between, so the buried size would be 16x20.

But don't forget the cost of your ventilation system in addition to the lights. If you are growing in a closed box, you have to run climate control in that box. And I forgot before- footings. Unless you are putting that box on some rock you are going to want some footings under it. Drainage and stability for the weight of the container.

Good points. I was just thinking about it sitting on dirt, but it WOULD be an issue if the dirt underneath started to erode away! So I guess I'd have to pour cement... and that ain't cheap :-/

AC turns into some money, too.

Mmm, now I dunno. I was trying to do something better and save some money, but it's sounding like it wouldn't be better (if grow lights can't really replace sunlight) and the costs are starting to add up :-/

You can do gravel as a pad. Not sure if that's cheaper than cement by you. But folks do boxes on the ground on gravel pads around here on the regular. I'm not sure what the folks with buried units do around here. I've seen the venting systems but didn't see them getting built/buried.

You could do a hybrid. Bury the box with the roof exposed and put in a glass roof. If you want to take off roof and a wall you can bury in the remaining wall side for thermal value and build out the cut side with glass.

If you keep it above ground you can pretty the containers up with some siding and they look like cottages. Put a glass roof or windows in if you want. Couple of the places around here have that kind of thing set up as extra guest space on the property.

Haha, my MIL would love nothing more than to move in to a tiny home in my back yard!!! I love her to death, anyway, and we've talked about selling her money pit of a house and buying her a tiny home more than once ;-) The only down side is that, at her age, it would only be a matter of time before she's living in MY house! LOL

My main reason for burying them, though, was for insulation. They're pretty old, and I'm sure they're not exactly air tight. I thought that burying them would be cheaper than insulation.

I like the idea of a glass roof, though! Or, I guess plexiglass? A 3/4" thick 4' x 8' sheet of plexi is about $500, though... $300 if I went down to 1/2", but I don't think that would support the weight of any wild deer that run across it; much less the distracted hunter! But I really like the idea, so I'm going to have to put some thought in to how to make it work...

The more I think about it, the right type of people would pay good money to rent a 400 sq.ft hunting lodge with a glass roof and a trap door!

Not being air tight isn't really an issue- you are going to be cutting holes in it for ventilation anyway.

You would still neeed to insulate with burial though. Both for the waterproofing aspect if they aren't- you do not want a leaky box in the ground. And also because it's gonna be too cool in there. You are looking at 50-60's at 8-10 feet down in the ground. Maybe a little warmer or cooler depending on what 10 foot down in your neck of the woods stays at. But usually too cool for growing plants. And the box is made of metal, holds the cold more than wood would.

If you pitch your roof, animals won't have a tendency to run across the angled surface, and precipitation drain off is better. And you don't just use one sheet, you would still need roof support going on just like any other roof. You don't have to use real glass, you can use plastic. I'm not sure how much real glass is used anymore except in really expensive greenhouses.

Jason, Just a couple of suggestions to perhaps make operating a greenhouse a bit easier, and probably a lot less expensive for you. I grew orchids in a 10X12 prefab greenhouse through most of my navy career (with the assistance of a Verrrrry tolerant wife). Started in SC, and after two years moved everything to Kansas, three years later moved the still growing setup to Jacksonville FL, 18 months later found everything in Virginia, and two years later we returned to our hometown in SC. None of these set-ups came any where close to doubling my utility bills(sailors can't afford for that to happen).

There is a tremendous learning curve involved with greenhouse operation, and you can make it as expensive as you want to. I would suggest you find a greenhouse operation near you that is cultivating the type plants you want to grow, and make an appointment to go visit the place. Tell the owner what you are up to, and that you want to pick his brain for a day, if necessary. Go, and do just that...Pay him if necessary, afterall, he did not learn all that he will tell you for free. You will get years of his accumulated knowledge and skills in that session. take notes, or, if he will permit it, record the session. Learn everything you can, and try to maintain that friendship. It will be invaluable to you.

Please take this as just a suggestion, to keep you from jumping out of one expensive project into ever more expensive and complicated projects, until you give up in complete frustration.

Bill